Summer of 95

Occasional glimpses of brightness here, but 95% cloud cover- and there's another mass of muck out to the west on the satellite. While France is beautifully clear- what is causing Britain to get all this rubbish? I watched the satellite yesterday, this mass of cloud encroached from west of Ireland yet there was no frontal, convective activity or even depressions nearby. Just a huge mass of muck.

Hi guys, that star near the Moon was Aldebaran. Capella is way off the ecliptic and can never be that close to it- Aldebaran is a bit fainter than Capella but it's still first magnitude. Easy way to check is to find Orion- following the line of the belt up and to the right leads more or less to Aldebaran. Also to double check you should see the Pleiades just to the right of it. Aldebaran and Betelgeuse (top left star of Orion) set at roughly the same time while Capella doesn't set at all. The first-magnitude stars that can be near the Moon: Aldebaran, Pollux, Regulus, Spica, Antares

No chance of nearing 20C this weekend if that mass of cloud encroaching from the west doesn't clear off. Its been lurking on the satpics all day and is storming us overnight..... Maybe next week if the charts come off and nuisance cloud stays away, but I think 17-18 is more likely. Still good for early March though.

Been a beautiful day, currently 13C but feels like 16-17 in the sun. It was horrible first thing this morning too.

Bloody hell... 25 quid on the lottery last night and now this

I've known air frosts here followed by temps in the mid-teens, but always between March and May. April 2007 had a few, as did mid May 2005. But the biggest diurnal ranges I've seen was during the air traffic shutdown of April 2010. One day had a min of -4 and a max of 14.5, and there were -1s and 2s followed by 12-16 maxima. That spell had the clearest skies I've ever seen.... For some reason autumn never seems to produce these ranges, at least not these days. Octobers 1992 and 1993 had quite a few frosts followed by sunny mild days.

If it was only as bright as airglow, nobody would have seen it. Airglow needs a Bortle 1 or 2 sky to see which nowhere in the UK has. Looking at the aurora reports, there is a very noticeable "hole" over the N and E Midlands into southern parts of Lancs and Yorks: it was reported at Preston, Cambridgeshire and Hereford but nowhere in between. I have never seen anywhere in Britain zodiacal light, airglow or gegenschein, and have never seen M33 without binoculars.

There's a Shropshire aurora shield as well as a storm and snow one!!!!!!!!! It was crystal clear, I went out about 10 times including to a field away from the lights and with a clear N horizon. Zilch. And it was seen south of here in Hereford.

Crystal clear here, sweet nothing. It is clear right down to the N horizon (Vega and Deneb visible), have been looking all evening. Must be visible here if it is in Essex and Norfolk.

Just Herefordshire, Gloucestershire and bits of Worcs and Warwickshire on the MO site now. But on the satellite image the low looks too far north, where it seems to be going only N Ireland stands a chance of anything, if the temperature drops. Clear here but for the umpteenth time this winter not freezing.

Hail here now...

I agree it's a stupid rule, just has to be observed for consistency with earlier records, no other reason. If (when) we go BST/BST+1 presumably it will change to 1000?

There's no high ground in the East Midlands! OK maybe Charnwood Forest and a couple of spots in Northants are over 200m, but nothing tops 300 which is usually the crucial altitude when they give forecasts like that. Is the East Anglia one the same.... I really hope we can score a cover at 9am, even 1cm of slush is OK, we nearly made it on Feb 11 when that temporary cover came an hour too late. It'll beat 2007-8 if we can.

This winter here hasn't been good for anyone. Even ducks are sick of it.The majority of us are of course "coldies" and a winter with only one max below 5C isn't going to excite us. But additionally its been a poor winter for "mildies": long stretches of days in double figures have been absent too. Its just been 6-9C and raining virtually every day. Nobody likes that!

1991-2 and 1992-3 both had ice days here, and long frosty spells which made up somewhat for the lack of snow. 1999-00 was a shocker, no lying snow and lots of westerly rubbish, but it had more frosts and less rain than 13-14. 2007-8 another shocker, no lying snow, but a sunny dry February with quite a few frosts made it better than this one. Honourable mention 2009-10 for being totally infuriating in this area: giving us 2cm when most places had 10-20, raining when it should have snowed, being dry when it was snowing literally everywhere else- all 3 months did this. The greatest depth I had that winter was just 6cm, less than 06-7 or 94-5. But overall, yes, it's 13-14.

Going by recent years, Birmingham! Always seems to get hit from every direction. Lincolnshire for some reason gets a lot too, along with the SE (but no one place seems favoured there, just the general area) And the least- north and central Shropshire and south Cheshire. Hardly ever gets hit these days, especially compared to the 90s. Even the NE gets more.

Yesterday was the first dry day since 4th January. 42 days in a row with rain. Unbelievable- and it's raining again now.

In contrast to February, March 1994 is a complete blank for me! Must have been one of those westerly months that aren't notably wet away from the western high ground districts; I don't remember any cold or unusually mild weather either. Can remember things from every other month that year (ridiculously warm November and most of December, disappointing August after good June/July, mostly wet and mild Jan, fairly cold April and May, horrible September, very mixed October)- but March???

Wow- the pressure is above 1000mb First time in over a week! Went out a short while ago to let dog out, it has been clear all night and get again no airfrost. For the umpteenth time this winter a crystal clear calm night couldn't get below 2C. Its getting ridiculous now- why hasn't it frozen?

It was snowier than Feb 1996 here, not quite as snowy as Feb 1991 but not far off. There was virtually no snow between the Feb 1991 and 1994 events, that's what made the latter particularly memorable, especially as after a 3 year wait two came along at once within 10 days. The second Feb 1994 event on the 22-23rd was the last time 10cm fell in one go during a winter month- its only happened since in March 2006. Decembers 1995 and 2010 recorded deeper snow, but due to repeated falls on top of each other.

Getting pretty blowy, but nothing like Wednesday. Looks like the strongest gusts are still south of us, for now.

Sleet and small hail mixed in with the rain here, temp varying between 3 and 4C. Turning vile again.

Best:worst month of recent years: 1990 August:February 1991 February:June 1992 May:August 1993 November:September 1994 February:September 1995 March/August/December 3-way tie:February 1996 June:May 1997 April:June 1998 August:October 1999 July:January 2000 December:October 2001 March:September 2002 No half-decent months:November 2003 April:December 2004 February:October 2005 June:January 2006 July:October 2007 Apr:July 2008 May:August 2009 February:July 2010 December:July 2011 Sept/Oct transition:February 2012 March:June 2013 January:December The autumn months certainly appear in the worst column a lot, until that recent run of awful summers at least.

Lots of long nice sunny spells today, but spoilt by a couple of heavy unexpected showers that appeared out of nowhere. One at about 1430 had sleet in despite a temp of 5C. That's 40 days in a row with rain now, literally the stuff of legend.

Crazy afternoon, lots of trees down and the river is rising again. Luckily we kept our power, the village 2 miles up the road is out as is part of town. Last time I remember wind speeds approaching this at Shawbury was 20th March 2004, but there was no rain with that one.